FEW JAMAICANS who have gone abroad have 'thrown stone behind them'. The rough estimate is that some 2.5 million Jamaicans live outside the country, as many as are at home. Even second generation migrants who have no birth connection to the island, still regard the island as 'home'.
The strength and vibrancy of this extraordinary Jamaican connection was once again manifested in the recent Diaspora symposium and the outpourings from overseas Jamaicans in response to our press coverage and our own Editors' Forum. Generally, Jamaicans abroad want to assist with development at home. There is a burning desire to help fix the problems which made many of them 'refugee' migrants in the first place, escaping economic hardships, the crime threat and other challenges to a productive and peaceful life.
Remittances have become a mainstay of the sagging economy. The money transfer companies are reporting that, on a per capita basis, Jamaica is one of the world's leading destinations for transfers. Returning residents, most of them at the post-retirement stage, also represent significant inflows.
But there is much more that Jamaicans abroad can offer and want to offer. It was to explore these possibilities that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, rather belatedly, and in conjunction with the Mona School of Business, staged the recent symposium on the Diaspora.
The symposium would have generated its own ideas and prescriptions for action. Several of our own contributors have added informed opinion to the discussion. Jamaicans overseas have also spoken via media interventions and were participants in the symposium. The point now is to act.
One of the main frustrations, which has come up over and over again, is the absence of any functional mechanism to respond to offers of assistance, to connect capacity abroad to need at home. Many tales have been told of offers which have simply been ignored or have fizzled out in an incapable bureaucracy.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade has now recognised that the ball is in its court. While the necessary links cannot be purely a matter of Government action, the state has a central role to play through its various ministries and the Foreign Service. Late though the action is, the Government must be commended for the steps being taken to connect the Diaspora with the nation at home. There is an enormous range of knowledge, skills and positions held by Jamaicans overseas which can be channelled home in the service of development. At the same time, much more can and should be done to look after the interests of Jamaicans overseas and when they come back into the country. Let one hand wash the other in mutual support.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
